Tuesday Trivia: Catching a break
Becoming an All-Star is among the top individual goals of players from any generation.
Outside of winning a World Series championship or a major postseason award, nothing beats becoming an All-Star. OK, maybe signing a gazillion-dollar contract, but that’s another story.
Which brings us to today’s installment of Tuesday Trivia, which focuses on a player who spends more than six seasons in the minors before making his major league debut midway through the 1966 season.
This player then spends four more seasons honing his craft in the major leagues before his selection to the 1970 All-Star Game in Cincinnati.
He plays the final six innings of that game in Cincinnati. Even gets a big hit to send the game into extra innings.
Now, does he get his picture in the newspapers for doing that?
No.
He does, though, get his picture in the newspapers for being the on-deck hitter standing by the plate when Cincinnati’s Pete Rose barrels over Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse to score the game-winning run.
In doing so, Rose deprives the answer to today’s question of another chance to impact the game.
Of course, the name of that on-deck hitter is …
We can wait.
And wait some more.
And wait even longer until you come up with the name of Dick Dietz, the San Francisco Giants’ catcher who rushes to the plate as Rose collides with Fosse to end the 1970 All-Star Game after 12 innings.
Dietz spends eight seasons in the majors from 1966-73, but never has a better season than he does in 1970.
That season – his lone as an All-Star – Dietz hits .300 in 148 games for the San Francisco Giants with 22 home runs and 107 runs batted in.
All are career highs for the 28-year-old Dietz, whose days with the Giants abruptly end in April 1972 when he is sold to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
That cause-and-effect move comes after Dietz’s ardent involvement as the Giants’ player representative during the players’ 1972 strike.
Dietz’s involvement infuriates Giants management, which unloads its starting catcher before the start of the ’72 season.
Dietz is not the only player rep from the 1972 strike to quickly lose his job as others – including pitcher Jack Aker, catcher Russ Gibson and outfielder Billy Cowan – are traded or released before the end of the 1972 season.
Even more player reps are traded before the start of the ’73 season.
As for Dietz, he spends the 1973 season as the Atlanta Braves’ backup catcher before he, too, is released prior to the 1974 season. He never plays again. Finished in the game at only 31 years old.
Dick Dietz (2) getting an upclose view of Pete Rose’s collision with catcher Ray Fosse that ends the 1970 All-Star Game in Cincinnati